Rape, assault, harassment: these are crimes with established parameters. All of them could also be called “bullying.” They could also be described as “mean,” and I suppose we could enact a law against being mean. But I’d rather have laws against specific crimes, rather than against vast swaths of vaguely defined human behaviour. Ultimately, bullying is in the eye of the bullied.

Here's where these laws fall apart. Instead of an objective standard, the accused are held to a subjective standard, one applied by the accuser and enforced by the law. Where most criminal activities are clearly defined by certain actions, cyberbullying (and regular bullying) have no clear definition.

The bill works this way: an accuser files a claim with the court, requesting a protection order against the accused. A judge decides whether the behavior detailed meets the definition of "cyberbullying" set by this law. The definition of cyerbullying is broad and vague, the end result of overly-cautious lawmakers addressing a problem with no clear boundaries and doing so under the self-imposed pressure of needing to "do something."

The definition of cyberbullying, in this particular bill, includes “any electronic communication” that ”ought reasonably be expected” to “humiliate” another person, or harm their “emotional well-being, self-esteem or reputation.”

If this is the standard, I don’t know a person who isn’t a cyberbully.

Here's what can happen to the accused should the judge grant the protection order. (This process, by the way, occurs without any input from the accused -- it's solely between the judge and accuser.)

The police can seize your computers and phone.

Your Internet connection can be shut off.

You can be ordered to stop using electronic devices entirely.

Your Internet Service Provider or Internet companies, such as Facebook, can be compelled to fork over all your data to the police.

You can be gagged by the court and prohibited from mentioning your accuser online.

If you violate any of these orders, you’ll face stiff fines and up to two years of jail time. At this point, your accuser can sue you in civil court.

So, the law basically makes it possible for anyone's unfortunate online comments to result in a civil suit or a prison sentence. The process isn't adversarial at any point where some input or context might make a difference. Presumably, the accused can defend themselves once in civil court, but that will only mitigate the damages without having any effect on previous criminal charges or punishments already enacted.

Even worse, the law opens up parents to be targeted by civil suits for the bullying activities of their children and pushes school administrators to enact zero-tolerance policies backed by mandatory suspensions for bullying behavior -- even if it occurs off-campus. While there's something to be said for forcing parents to take responsibilities for the actions of their children, in practice this becomes nothing more than presenting parents as a "soft target" for civil suits, allowing the accuser to bypass the accused entirely if success against the parents seems more promising.

Responding to a bullying incident by lowering the bar and raising the consequences is completely the wrong answer, no matter how tragic the incident. This new law has the potential to criminalize plenty of non-bullying activity and may actually encourage abuse by anyone who sees the possibilities provided by the law's unintended consequences -- an easy route to shut down and prosecute anyone who irritates them in any way.

Here's what can happen to the accused should the judge grant the protection order. (This process, by the way, occurs without any input from the accused -- it's solely between the judge and accuser.)

Basically it allows for lawful bullying since the language is broad. Not to mention that the bullied may feel empowered with all these stuff and virtually make the life of the bully a living hell effectively becoming the bully. This case is rather extreme but think of other cyberbullying cases where there was only verbal/moral harassment: what if the tables were turned and the original bully suicided? Would it be fair?

The simple answer is no. Punishment has to be proportional to the harm caused as ruled by a jury, judges and experts. Putting the power of effectively making "justice" in the hands of any random person (including real bullying victims) is not justice.

It will be abused like crazy. And a ton of innocent kids and stupid teenagers will suffer a much greater harm than bullying may ever produce. But alas, it's for the children!

There's no way in hell this will last longer than a couple months before it's stomped down under section 2, and probably one or more of sections 7, 8 and 9. The questions are how much damage the Nova Scotia police will do before it's stomped down, and whether the issue has enough momentum that the Nova Scotia government will break out the notwithstanding clause in response.

Re:

Careful Application

Since when have kids thought twice about posting? The NSA and CSIS collecting it all 'ought to scare them enough. Alas,
probably not and this law will have to be carefully applied until the debate it carves out.

Let's look at this closely

The definition of cyberbullying, in this particular bill, includes “any electronic communication” that ”ought reasonably be expected” to “humiliate” another person, or harm their “emotional well-being, self-esteem or reputation.”

The definition of cyberbullying, in this particular bill, includes “any electronic communication” that ”ought reasonably be expected” to “humiliate” another person, or harm their “emotional well-being, self-esteem or reputation.”

So if someone says something that causes you to face palm they have bullied you by causing you actual harm.

Unlikely to stay on the books

If penalties can be imposed without any input from the accused, that would seem to clearly violate sections 7 and 11d of the Charter, which give Canadians the right to a "full answer and defence".
Of course it will still cause plenty of trouble before it does finally get shot down by the courts.

Re:

"harms their reputation"
Has anyone else noticed that there's no mention of intent whatsoever? In other words, publishing factual information about someone's incompetence or criminal acts for the purpose of warning people would violate this law.

If laws like this existed on the other side of country (BC) I would practically be in jail by now. People last year at my school accused me of messing with privacy settings on FaceBook to say bad things about other students. Some teachers looked at me funny. Laws like these are too vague.

The Constitution protects free speech by preventing the government from creating laws which may affect it. Nowhere does it state that you're protected FROM speech, much less that the state is there to protect your feelings.

Ever think this rule was put in place for one thing and one thing only - to remove anyone that criticizes those in power in Nova Scotia (and of course their pay-masters in various entertainment industries).

Comes the MPAA - hey we think that your comment about "I don't like the MPAA because they are all cacky fingered asses" was humiliating therefore we get to take everything you own and make you fight to get it back...Yay! for the totalitarian state.

Re: Let's look at this closely

I find myself humiliating..I also find when the government takes away my PC, the government has humiliated me...therefore I lose my PC...but the government loses all their stuff too......with NO TRIAL.....

OMG

Law being used to target political dissidents

This law is already being abused. I wrote a feminist article about a man who sexually assaulted me and linked to his online profiles, all within the public domain and got CyberSCAN come to my house accusing me of cyberbullying because it made the guy look bad. This law is authoritarian, pure and simple and violates the human rights of Nova Scotians. Thinking of moving to another province just to get away from this shit.